Soccer-playing metal oxide giant spheres: a first step towards patterning structurally well defined nano-object collectives.

In context with the challenge to assemble giant molecules into patterns with limited size, molybdenum oxide giant spheres (with a molecular mass of about 16 kDa) could be 'kicked out' like soccer balls into the gas phase using matrix assisted laser desorption and ionization (MALDI) and detected by TOF mass spectrometry while cluster collectives ranging from dimers to pentamers were observed.